National signing day is today as the top rated high school players all over the country sign with their favorite school. It is one of the most important days of the year for each college team as usually the teams with the best recruiting classes year in and year out usually find themselves in the Top 25.

Covering college football as I do takes 52 weeks a year as it is and while I personally do not scout the high school games and rate each player I do compile my rankings based on the many different recruiting services across the country that follow and scout HS football year round. I not only like to use all of the biggest and best services, but I also use regional reports as well. The colleges themselves use many of these services to get the latest information on recruits.

One very important part of my College Football Preview Magazine is an individual player’s “PS#”. You will see them on almost every page and I find them vital in my analysis of a team.  A simple definition for a PS# is my ranking of the players at their positions coming out of high school.

When I receive a recruiting magazine, I translate each player’s ranking into a point system from 1-100.  Each and every player is then logged into the computer and give them a point total from each source. This is a very time-consuming process. Many players are listed by just one or two sources. The higher ranked recruits are mentioned by almost every source. The more they are mentioned and the higher they are rated in each publication, the more total points they accrue. After months of entering all of this information, I sort the list by each position and by total points. Naturally, the QB with the most total points then becomes PS#1QB for that year. If a player is PS#99QB, that means he ranks 99th in total points of all QB’s coming out of high school that year.

While my final recruiting rankings for this year will not be completed for another week, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back on how some of my top players did from the class of 2011 at the QB spot.

Last year 15 True Frosh QB’s started at least one game for a total of 93 starts. 5 of them were in my Top 30 ranked QB’s coming out of HS including Teddy Bridgewater and Braxton Miller who both had Top 10 PS#’s and also both finished on my postseason All-Frosh team.

Here are my top 30 QB’s from last year (all VHT) and how they did statistically last year as a true frosh. I also included all the QB’s and their stats who started a game. Read more…

Well here it is, my projected AP Top 10 for next year as of January 30, 2012! I will mention it now and I will mention it numerous times throughout today’s blog but this is not MY preseason Top 10 for next year, it is where I project the AP Top 10 to come out at the start of the season.

Most AP voters usually look at a couple of criteria when they evaluate a team for the upcoming season. First they look at the number of returning starters that the team has coming back particularly at the offensive skill positions. A team that returns its starting QB and a combination of its RB and WR’s is often times more highly thought of than a team that loses its starting QB but returns its entire offensive line. Similarly a team that returns most of its starters on offense but loses a lot of its defensive playmakers usually is more highly thought of than a team that returns a majority of its defensive starters but loses its skill position players on offense.

Another factor that is heavily weighted is the performance of the team in the bowl game, which undoubtedly is the lasting image of that team in the offseason. A team coming off a huge bowl win usually is more highly thought of than a team that is coming off a bowl loss regardless of what their schedule looks like for the upcoming season. Read more…

Every year in my magazine, I list my Top Non-AQ teams for that particular year and over the course of the last six seasons I have had great success!

In 2006, my top non-AQ team was Boise St and I PROJECTED THEM INTO A BCS BOWL and they went undefeated and got to the Fiesta Bowl where they beat Oklahoma. In 2007, I called for Hawaii to go 12-0 and grab a SUGAR BOWL BERTH and that is exactly what they did!

In 2008 my top non-AQ team was Utah and while they were NOT RANKED in the preseason and no one picked them to even win the MWC at the start of the year except me, they finished unbeaten and #2 in the country! In 2009 my Top non-AQ team was Boise St and when they beat TCU in the Fiesta Bowl they finished #4 and the top non-AQ team in the country. In 2010 it was FIVE in a row. EVERYONE had Boise St as their top non AQ team but I went against the grain and picked TCU and coach Patterson and company did not disappoint as they knocked off Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl and finished #2 in the country, naturally the top rated non AQ team out there (Boise #9!) Read more…

We have already been working hard on the 2012 season and today’s blog is the current list for returning starters for each team in 2012 broken down by offense, defense and special teams (kicker/punter). The * on the offense number denotes that the starting QB is returning. Below the list I broke down teams with the most/least returning starters.

I will be back later this week with my forecasts for the AFC and NFC Championship games while on Monday I will expand on the Las Vegas odds to win the 2012 BCS National Championship and give you a breakdown of each of the teams including key starters back/lost. Read more…

In 2008, Alabama was only ranked #24 at the start of the year. They were just 7-6 in 2007, had just 12 returning starters and faced a schedule that had four brutal road games. They had to take on the preseason ACC Title favorite Clemson in Atlanta, take on the defending national champ LSU in Death Valley where they would be sky high for Saban’s return, face the defending SEC East Champ Tennessee in Knoxville AND take on the 2008 preseason #1 team Georgia on the road. That does not sound like the recipe to vault into the Top 10 let alone become the #1 team in the country.

Alabama amazingly went 12-0 and was ranked #1 in the country at the end of the regular season. They had two MAIN factors in their favor that year. Both their offensive and defensive lines made my Top Units List in the front of the magazine and if you are strong along the line of scrimmage you can control many games. Another factor was that they were much better than a 7-6 team in 2007 as all 6 of their losses in ‘07 were by 7 or less points so they were just a handful of plays away from being 13-0. I did a Best Case/Worst Case scenario for each team in the regional magazines, which takes all of the close wins or losses from the previous year and reverses them to see how close a team was to a much stronger or much weaker season. Read more…

From 2005-’08 I published an article titled Coaching Changes in my College Football Preview magazine. Each year I try to make the magazine a little bit bigger and a little bit better but we’re capped out at 328 pages so Coaching Changes does not appear in my 2011 magazine. We have had a lot of requests for this article and since the website has an unlimited amount of room, PhilSteele.com is a great vehicle to continue publishing this article and I will do so each year.

There is something to be said for coaching stability as it usually takes a couple of years for a new head coach to get a program going. They usually have their best success when they have a team full of their own recruits and their offensive and defensive systems have been in place for a couple of years. The first few years can be rough on a new head coach as they inherit players who now have to learn new schemes on both offense and defense and he has to learn the players strengths and weaknesses. Pete Carroll won two straight National Titles but in his first year the Trojans opened up at 2-5 and finished at just 6-6 after the bowl. Tommy Tuberville’s first team at Auburn was just 5-6 but in his 6th season they were a perfect 13-0. Nick Saban’s first LSU team started off 3-3 and finished 8-4 but in his 4th year they won a share of the National Title. In Bob Stoops’ first year at Oklahoma, the Sooners were just 7-5, including a bowl loss to Mississippi. Since then, they have won a National Title and played in seven Big 12 Championship games. Les Miles went 4-7 in his first year at Oklahoma St followed by 3 winning years. Jim Tressel was just 7-5 his first year but won a National Title in his second. Kirk Ferentz was a combined 4-19 his first two seasons but the Hawkeyes have now been to six Jan bowls. Pat Hill’s first two Fresno St teams went a combined 11-12 but since then have had 11 winning years. Finally Woody Hayes won just 4 games in his first season at Ohio St. Read more…

The AP Poll was released over the weekend and today I can officially come up with Overrated and Underrated teams for the upcoming year.

First, here is the Preseason AP Top 25.

Overrated Teams

#23 Auburn-There are several signs pointing downward for last year’s defending champ. This year they lose the best offensive player in the NCAA in Heisman winner QB Cam Newton as well as arguably the best defensive player in DT Nick Fairley. Auburn also benefited from an amazing 7 net close wins and naturally the schedule gets tougher with road games vs Clemson, South Carolina, Arkansas, LSU and Georgia. They lose an incredible 31 lettermen and return just 6 starters (fewest in the country). Last year I had Texas as my #1 overrated team (preseason AP #5) and they went from the National Title game to 5-7 and Auburn will have to have some talented youngsters grow up quickly to avoid a similar fate

#22 Florida-After an 8-5 season (NR) former head coach Meyer stepped down due to health concerns and they bring a new HC in Muschamp who has no previous HC experience and just 10 returning starters. The Gators have just 3 SEC HG’s and play South Carolina and UGA away from home and pull the top two teams (Bama and LSU) out of the West. I think UF may have a tough time topping last year’s 8 wins and will not finish in the AP Top 25 at the end of the year.

#9 Oklahoma St-Last year I took a lot of flack for picking the Cowboys last in the Big 12 South but nearly every magazine picked them 5th or 6th as they were one of the more inexperienced teams in the country. Naturally they went on to a great season with their first 11-win season in school history. This year they return 2 of their 3 “triplets” in Weeden and Blackmon but OSU loses OC Holgorsen and RB Hunter from an off avg 44.2 ppg, which was their best since 1988. OSU was also +12 in TO’s, has five Big 12 away games (incl at Texas A&M, Texas, Missouri, and Texas Tech) and only had 2 starts lost to injury last year. They do get Oklahoma at home again this year but were outgained by 209 yds to the Sooners last year. There is no question that the Cowboys are very talented but because of having such a tough B12 schedule I do not have them in my Top 15. Read more…

Today the preseason AP Top 25 was released with Oklahoma clearly ranked #1. Every year I am particularly intrigued by who is placed in the preseason AP Top 10 as I try to predict what those teams will be shortly after the previous season is completed.

Most AP voters usually look at a couple of criteria when they evaluate a team for the upcoming season. First they look at the number of returning starters that the team has coming back particularly at the offensive skill positions. A team that returns its starting QB and a combination of its RB and WRs is often times more highly thought of than a team that loses its starting QB but returns its entire offensive line. Similarly a team that returns most of its starters on offense but loses a lot of its defensive playmakers usually is more highly thought of than a team that returns a majority of its defensive starters but loses its skill position players on offense.

Another factor that is heavily weighted is the performance of the team in the bowl game, which undoubtedly is the lasting image of that team in the offseason. A team coming off a huge bowl win usually is more highly thought of than a team that is coming off a bowl loss regardless of what their schedule looks like for the upcoming season. Read more…

Schools have a lot of different methods in determining returning starters. I personally look at the individual starters for all 120 FBS teams. I determine only 11 starters from the previous year. Some schools have the criteria of 5 or more starts and therefore list 14 starters returning (as an example: 9 starters returning, 5 starters lost). I look at each position and determine my starters. Sometimes my criteria is not just 6 or more starts. As an example: at Nebraska a couple years ago year RB Marlon Lucky had 11 starts at the I-back position. His “backup” Roy Helu had 2 starts and Quentin Castille had 1. Determining the Nebraska RB position on the start basis would have a starter lost from the RB position. I look at the fact that Helu led the team in ’08 with 803 yds rush while Lucky was a distant second at 517. Castille almost topped Lucky’s numbers with 467. Each of the 3 had almost identical carries. With the top rusher back and 1,373 of the teams 1,910 RB yds (72%) I graded that unit as a starter returning.

In the magazine I list what I feel is the most accurate starters returning chart in the country on each team’s right page. Since the magazine was published in May there have been some teams which have lost some returning starters for different reasons. Here on my Friday blog I am providing you with a single chart that lists all 120 teams so you can see the starters returning at a glance and in RED I list the teams who have lost starters since May. If you’re wondering who was lost, check out my complete list of injuries on the front page of PhilSteele.com which we update daily. Read more…

Turnovers can have a huge impact on games and on a team’s season. They can also lead to many misleading final scores. During the season I list all of the previous week’s misleading final scores on PhilSteele.com on my Monday Daily Blog. By reading about them each week you can uncover some underrated and overrated teams throughout the season.

Here are a couple of examples from last year. Iowa St benefitted in B2B weeks from a combined +8 in TO’s beating Northern Iowa and Texas Tech by a combined 79-38. The next week they were even in TO’s vs Utah and were pummeled at home losing 68-27.

West Virginia outgained Conn 414-278 and had a 24-16 FD edge but were -4 in TO’s and lost 16-13. The next week they hammered Cincinnati 37-10 as a small favorite.

Turnovers can not only make a difference in a game but can make the difference between a winning and losing season.
Two years ago there was another GREAT example. In 2008, Buffalo won the MAC Title thanks mostly to being +19 in turnovers. They were actually outgained by an avg of 408-370 during the season! Last year they had 13 returning starters and this time outgained foes 405-343. That means they went from -38 ypg to +62 ypg (100 ypg better) but their record dropped to 5-7 as the TO’s were -7. Read more…